“No, neither have I.”
“Oh dear-I hope you didn’t come all this way to see if I knew?”
“No, no. I have something of a… theory about the Dennis pictures. I was hoping seeing yours in the flesh might help me clear something up.”
“Oh, yes?” She sipped her coffee, never once breaking off her piercing gaze. Zach saw that there was no point in trying to dissemble.
“It worries me a great deal that there’s no mention of Dennis anywhere. I find it almost impossible to believe, given the dates the portraits were supposedly drawn. If the dates are correct, Dennis would almost certainly have had to be in Blacknowle at some point. But I have been to Blacknowle, and spoken to some of the people who lived there at that time. And still nobody has ever heard of him.”
“Supposedly drawn, you say? Am I to understand that you don’t think the portraits are genuine?”
“I know that’s… not something anybody wants to hear. But don’t you think it’s odd that these portraits, the only ones of Dennis we know of, all came up for sale in recent years? Apparently from the same vendor? And that they are all so similar, and yet not quite the same?”
“I agree. It is very odd. But you have only to see the draftsmanship to know that they are indeed by Charles Aubrey. Perhaps he fell out with Dennis, whoever he was. Perhaps Aubrey himself expunged the young man from his life before he died. And perhaps he himself was dissatisfied with the pictures and hid them away. Perhaps that’s why they were never sold. Until now.”
“It’s possible, I suppose. But I just can’t quite believe it.”
“Well, let me take you to meet my Dennis. Perhaps he will help you make up your mind.”
She led him across the hallway to a large study dominated by a gleaming walnut desk. The walls were lined with bookcases, and wherever there was space, a picture had been hung. Zach caught sight of Dennis and was already walking towards the picture when Mrs. Langton pointed it out. He knew the piece already, of course, having studied it repeatedly in the auction catalog. He studied it again now, and felt his disappointment rising with each second that ticked past. Seeing the real piece brought him no greater clarity whatsoever. He was aware of Mrs. Langton watching him closely, and decided that for the sake of appearances, he had better show more interest than he felt.
“Would you mind if I took it over to the window to look at it?” he asked.
“Of course not. Help yourself.” The picture was in a heavy wooden frame, and Zach held it tightly as he took it down from the wall. At the window, he turned it until the light shone full onto the paper. He stared at the pencil strokes, at the signature, at the young man’s ambiguous expression. He stared, and wished for something to surface, but nothing did. Yet he still could not shake the feeling that the picture was not entirely what it purported to be.
“He’s no great masterpiece, I know, but a nice enough drawing, I’ve always thought. And he was a bargain,” said Annie Langton, when the silence had grown prolonged. “Shall I leave you alone for a while?” she added.
“No, there’s no need,” said Zach.
“You’ve got what you came for? Already?”
“Not as such, no. Did you ever find out who the vendor was, by any chance?”
“No, and I did ask-I was as curious as anyone as to where these new works were suddenly springing from. Usually the buyer can be told, but not this time. Strict anonymity.” She tipped her eyebrows ruefully.
“And it was in this frame, when you bought it?”
“Oh, no. It wasn’t framed at all when it arrived at the auction house. Just rolled up inside some grubby sheets of newspaper, if you can believe that-not the best thing for it at all. Luckily the newsprint had only transferred a little onto the back of the portrait, not the front.”
“In newspaper? So whoever sold it wasn’t exactly reverent, then. Do you remember what newspaper it was?”
“The Times, I think, but I can’t remember for sure. Nothing revelatory-dated about a month before the sale. I still have it, if you’d like to see it?”
“You kept it? Yes, please.” Inwardly, Zach prayed that the pages would be from a local newspaper, not a national one.
“Well, as far as I am concerned, things like that become part of the provenance of a piece, however inappropriate they may be.” Mrs. Langton crossed to a large chest of drawers and bent to open the bottom drawer, withdrawing a slightly squashed cylinder of broadsheet. “Here you go, though I don’t think it’ll help you much, I fear.”
The pages were from the Times. Disappointed, Zach unrolled the cylinder and scanned the date and a few of the headlines. He wasn’t sure what he thought he would find, but there was a chance that, somehow, the picture’s former owner might have left some clue to their identity. He turned the sheets over and examined the other side, and then something in the bottom right-hand corner made him stop. There were a few colorful smudges on the paper; inky smears in a vibrant, emerald green. They looked like fingermarks, and as Zach frowned at them, trying to place where he had seen that color recently, he saw something that made him go cold.
“Are you all right, Mr. Gilchrist? You’ve gone rather pale.” Annie Langton’s hand was on his arm, but her voice seemed to come from far away. Zach could hardly hear her above the thumping of blood in his ears, and in his hands, the newspaper began to shake uncontrollably. In the corner of the paper, right on the edge, was a thumbprint the exact same emerald green that marked the covered ewes in Hannah’s flock. A thumbprint with the sharp diagonal line of a scar running across it, clear and unmistakable.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dimity was sick on the boat on the way to Tangier.
“I thought your father was a fisherman?” said Élodie, standing on the deck of the steamer with the wind fluttering her hair around her and whipping the words away.
“But I’m not,” Dimity pointed out, doubling over the railing again as her stomach heaved. By then there was nothing left to come up, and she wiped a string of spittle from her chin. “I’ve never been on a boat before.”
“Can we get you something, Mitzy? A glass of water?” said Delphine.
“Ginger’s best, if they have it; or mint,” she croaked, her throat ragged and sore; so dizzy she daren’t let go of the railing. She looked around for Charles and saw him on a bench on the upper deck, sketching a pair of little boys who were playing with their model airplanes. She was half glad that he wasn’t watching her being sick, and half jealous of the boys. Celeste was almost as unhappy at sea as she was, but the Moroccan woman remained in her cabin, lying down with the room darkened. A kind of quiet, private dignity in distress that Dimity wished she could emulate, but when she went indoors she only felt worse, and her head started to pound as well, the blood throbbing through her temples as though it had doubled in volume. Her only hope was to watch the horizon, and remain on the leeward side of the deck. When Delphine returned from the galley with a sprig of mint, asking if she should boil it or what, Dimity snatched it from her and chewed the leaves raw, desperately hoping that the lurching in her gut would stop. At least the mint masked the foul taste in her mouth. Élodie watched her with distaste and a trace of sympathy.
“It’ll be worth it when we get there, honestly,” she said staunchly.
After a while, exhaustion sent Dimity inside, where she lay down on a bench beneath a window to sleep. She had no idea what time it was when Delphine shook her awake, her face alight with excitement.
“Come and see,” she said, pulling at Dimity’s hands until she rose, shakily, to her feet. Delphine led her back out onto the deck, where Charles, Celeste, and Élodie were already at the rail. The light was dazzling, and Dimity shut her eyes instinctively. Such light, so strong through her eyelids that they glowed redder than a fire. When she could open them, it was all-consuming, and she flinched. “Look! We’re here. Morocco!” Delphine said, nudging her closer to the rail. Finally able to see, Dimity gasped.